Marvel Cosmic Invasion Review: One Marvelous Throwback

If you’re like me your first exposure to Marvel Comics was the videogames. Some younger fans will have been introduced to it via the MCU, but I’m old enough to have grown up with the pre-MCU movies so I already knew about the franchise long before the first Iron Man came out. Even if a lot of those weren’t great. I’m still in therapy over X-men Origins.

Of course I also remember the old cartoon series like Spider-Man and X-men. Both of which are absolute classics and introduced me to some of Marvels biggest characters, but truthfully my first big exposure to the wider Marvel pantheon was through the videogames, especially the ones that came out during the 90’s.

Despite the decade being dismal for the comics, it was a big boon period for the video games. The X-men arcade by Konami, the Capcom fighters, Spiderman Maximum Carnage and the Sega arcade game, Captain America and the Avengers, Avengers in Galactic Storm?

Ok, maybe not that last one, but a lot of them were really good and I have a lot of nostalgia for some of them. Admittedly I played more of the 2000’s Marvel games, but I still played some Marvel vs Capcom 2 on the PS2, and I always loved the X-men arcade whenever I got the chance to play it.

I’m not alone in my nostalgia. A lot of other people grew up with and loved these games too. And since we’re in a society that is currently obsessed with nostalgia, it only makes sense someone would do a retro styled throwback to those classic Marvel games. Who better to do it then than the team behind Shredders Revenge, Tribute Games and DotEmu.

Quick aside, can we appreciate what a good year DotEmu have had. Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, Absolum and now this. They’ve been knocking it out of the park lately. Even if I wasn’t as hot on Absolum as others were, it was still a good game. If you were a fan of retro action games then DotEmu made sure you ate well this year.

But yeah. they’re back at it again with Marvel Cosmic Invasion. A classic 90’s styled beat-em-up based on the Annihilation comic book storyline from 2006. I find it funny this is such a throwback to 90’s era Marvel and yet the story is based on an event comic from the mid 2000’s. Not that I’m complaining mind you. It’s nice seeing the cosmic side of Marvel get more attention outside of Guardians of the Galaxy.

It’s still a clear love letter to 90’s era Marvel, but it doesn’t lean too heavily into it. It isn’t just nostalgic pandering to 90’s kids; it has elements from across the various eras of Marvel. It has a little something for everyone. So, even if you’re a new Marvel fan from the movies there’s still things for you. It isn’t just for the retrophiles like me.

The game is only loosely based on the Annihilation storyline. Only really taking the basic idea of an alien bug guy trying to take over the universe. The original comic was entirely focused on the cosmic side of Marvel, whereas the game adds in characters from the rest of the universe.

It does follow most of the major plot beats like Annihilus controlling Galactus, but it kind of just does its own thing with it. Which is perfectly fine. You don’t play a beat-em-up like this for the story, and it makes sense to be a looser adaptation for the sake of the gameplay. The character roster alone wouldn’t have been as interesting if they stuck to the comics too faithfully.

As I said though, you aren’t playing this for the story. The game seems to be aware of this since they don’t spend too much time or resources on it. There’s some brief cutscenes before and after each level, but they only exist to provide context on what each level is about.

The cutscenes are also nothing too elaborate either. Just some still images with no animations. They get the job done but that’s about it. The only cutscene that does stand out is the opening which is a damned good one. It looks like the comics brought to life and the animation is spectacular.

There is a decent amount of dialogue though. The cutscenes are all fully voiced and the levels also have a healthy amount of dialogue in them. Which, thankfully, is very well done. They got a lot of big-name voice actors to do the voices and many of them have voiced these characters in other Marvel productions like the animated series.

If you’re a fan of any past Marvel shows you should get a kick out of the voice cast. There’s a healthy amount of dialogue for both main story scenes and additional character banter, so they have plenty of opportunities to show off the voice talent.

The dialogue itself is also very fitting for a Marvel game. There’s plenty of quips while never going too far into the dreaded Marvel humour camp. It knows when to have a joke and when to have more gravitas. It feels more like the kind of dialogue you’d see in the old cartoons. Making it feel even more like a throwback to classic Marvel.

They really nailed the characterization for the entire cast. Spider-Man’s one-liners, Iron Man’s snark, Storms godly way of talking, She Hulk breaking the fourth wall. They clearly loved the characters and wanted to make sure they got each of them right.

Despite the story not being a major focus, it is handled decently. It did at least feel like some effort went into it rather than it feeling like an afterthought. Although the story is the weakest part of the game overall it’s not bad at all and is presented well enough for this type of game.

The presentation outside the story is also phenomenal. Tribute continues to show why they’re some of the best sprite artists in the business. The sprites are not only very well animated with a ton of charm and personality, but the game is also very bright and colourful too. It not only looks great, but it also captures the spirit and style of those classic 90’s Marvel games.

A lot of the animations are based on, if not flat-out references to, classic Marvel games. Marvel vs Capcom especially, there are a lot of animations that feel straight ripped from those games. Even the idle animations are a little bit too close to it; it’s borderline plagiarism at times.

It’s not just in the animations either. There’s a lot of references in the stage backgrounds too; some of which are fairly deep cuts. There’s a frigging Brute Force reference in this game and I never thought I would see that get a callout.

Even the character colours are all references, either to other points in that character’s history, other characters entirely, or even other Marvel games. Venom has a colour that is just his Marvel vs Capcom design. This game has a deep love of MVC and I’m all for it.

It’s a great looking game, but I do have some nitpicks. The story cutscenes, while fine, aren’t the best drawn. They can look a little off at times, and they aren’t framed in an interesting way. Shredder’s Revenge’s cutscenes were a lot more dynamic.

And, while the animation is excellent, it isn’t as smooth as other modern sprite-based games I’ve seen. Some animations feel like they have frames missing and do look a little weird in places. I’d say Shredder’s Revenge was better in terms of the animation quality, although in all fairness Cosmic Invasion does have more happening on screen and the backgrounds do look a lot busier in places.

The animation is also only noticeably worse on larger characters, which funnily enough does make it feel more like the MVC series. Marvel vs Capcom 2 is a classic, but it had a lot of compromises to the animation. I’m not saying they did this as a reference. I just find it a funny coincidence.

You also probably won’t even notice unless you pay extremely close attention. When actually playing the game it’s hard to make out due to all the action on screen. Which could be a reason the animation isn’t as smooth as something like, say, Ninja Gaiden Ragebound.

They probably wanted to make sure the game ran smoothly so they cut the animation frames in certain instances. Again, like what Capcom had to do with MVC2. The comparisons are just piling up aren’t they.

Basically, the game looks great with some minor negatives. Musically it’s also very well done. Tee Lopes did the music for this; he’s the same composer for Shredder’s Revenge and Sonic Mania so we’re in good hands. The music isn’t as good as those but it is still a great OST.

It’s very bombastic and heroic sounding, which is something you want in a superhero game. Like the visuals it does try to capture the tone and spirit of the music in the old 90’s Marvel games and it mostly succeeds at it. I say mostly because, while it does still sound like the music you’d hear in the old Marvel games, it isn’t anywhere near as catchy.

It’s still catchy, it’s just not as immediate as the examples I gave. After my first playthrough of Sonic Mania that entire OST was stuck in my head for weeks. With this one it took a bit for the songs to stick with me.

But when the soundtrack hits, it really hits. There are some incredible tunes here that really add to the action. I need to listen to it a few more times, but I still really like it so far.

The sound design could be a little stronger though. The sound mixing is fine; I just think the sound effects could use a bit more oomph. They aren’t as crunchy as I would like so hits don’t feel as satisfying. Not that the combat is unsatisfying, as we’ll discuss it very much isn’t, I just would have liked it if the hits had a touch more impact.

Despite my criticisms, I still think the presentation is superb. It’s gorgeous visually, and while the music isn’t as immediately catchy as I was hoping for, it’s still a great listen. It’s a top tier game when it comes to presentation much like Tribute and DotEmu’s past titles.

I’m only as critical as I am because there are a lot of great looking pixel art games with incredible music that have come out recently that it does make the parts where it comes up short stick out a bit more. Even if they’re just a minor nitpick.

I said in Ninja Gaiden vs Shinobi that Ragebound wasn’t as visually impressive because of how many great looking sprite games are getting released, and that is a similar issue with Cosmic Invasion. If I was looking at it in a vacuum it would get perfect marks for presentation, but there are a lot of other games with similar presentation that do it just a little bit better, and it’s hard not to compare it to them. The bar for this stuff has just been raised so much that my expectations are loftier.

Still the presentation is great and definitely captures the spirit of Marvel games of the 90’s. if you’re a fan of Marvel, not just 90’s Marvel but just the brand in general, then you’ll find a lot to love here. It really is a giant love letter to it.

The gameplay of Cosmic Invasion is also a massive love letter to classic Marvel games. The best way to describe it is if you took the old Marvel fighting games and beat-em-ups and fused the two together. Because that’s basically what Tribute did.

Now on a base level it is a standard beat-em-up. You move through the levels, pound everything in your way, and beat the boss at the end. It’s a simple and easy to pick up kind of game. Where it gets interesting is in the tag system.

Yeah, Cosmic Invasion is a tag team game. This is where the fighting game inspiration comes in since, if you know you’re fighting games, you know the Marvel fighters were famous for popularising tag team gameplay. You don’t just pick one hero in Cosmic Invasion; you pick a team of two and you can swap between them during gameplay.

The way the game controls is that you have a standard attack combo, a charge attack, a unique power move for each character, a jump, a tag button to swap characters, a screen clearing special attack, and a defensive button. I call it that because what defensive option you have is different depending on the character.

Every character plays differently from one another. Not just in stats but even in their base move-set. Some things are universal for each character; every character has a standard combo, a jump attack, dashes and dash attacks. Even the basic tag system is universal.

There’s more than just swapping characters out. You can also send your reserve character out to do a combo attack, their own power move, or even their special move. You can even launch the enemy into the air to do an aerial tag. Every character can do this, but how effective they are depends on the team.

See, while a lot of the base move-set is universally shared, a lot of it isn’t. There are things that some characters can do that others can’t. Some of them can fly but others stay grounded, some have a pop-up attack that can hit aerial enemies while others need to rely on their standard jump attacks, and some have projectiles as their hero’s unique action while others have a grab. Just to give some examples.

The way you defend is also different for each character. Some have a block that can deflect attacks with good timing, others have a dodge, and some can do both. Black Panther and Wolverine both have a dodge as their base defence move, but their charge moves can parry attacks. Even things like projectiles can be very different for each character, with some piercing multiple enemies at once while others only hit one at a time but have more shots to compensate.

You get the idea. Every character feels radically different from one another. The fundamentals are largely the same, but there’s enough differences to make the game feel very different depending on who you play as.

The game has a pretty sizable roster for a beat-em-up. Fifteen characters are available at launch and there are hints at future DLC, so we could end up with more. You don’t start with all fifteen, there are four you need to unlock, but even starting with eleven characters is a lot for this kind of game.

The selection is also solid. You have the Marvel mainstays like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America and Wolverine; you have the fan favourites like Storm, Black Panther, She Hulk and Venom; and finally you have the cosmic characters like Nova, Phyla-Vell, Silver Surfer, Beta Ray Bill, Phoenix, Rocket Raccoon, Silver Surfer and Cosmic Ghost Rider.

It definitely leans more into cosmic Marvel while still including characters from the other sides of it. Although unlike in Midnight Suns where they tried to mix the more recognisable heroes with the mystic side and it wound up clashing, here the roster meshes together much better. They still stick to the theme even if they aren’t strictly a cosmic character. I mean the Avengers and X-men deal with alien shit all the time and even Spider-Man has dealt with things like the symbiotes.

I also like they included some more obscure characters. It’s always nice seeing Beta Ray Bill get some love, and Cosmic Ghost Rider is an out there pick for the Spirit of Vengeance, but it fits the cosmic theme and it’s nice seeing him outside of the comics.

I do find it funny that Captain Marvel didn’t get in but Phyla did. I didn’t even know who Phyla was before this. Carol made it into Midnight Suns, but not the game where she actually fits the theme? It’s strange, but I guess that’s what happens when your movie becomes the biggest flop in the company’s history.

I mean the potential DLC could change that, but we’ll have to wait and see. Even without DLC though, the base roster is great. The characters all play differently and there’s enough variations in the playstyles that you should find a character that fits yours.

But you do need to pick more than one, and this is where the different playstyles and the tag mechanics intersect. Because obviously if every character plays differently then not every character is going to compliment each other. Some will work really well together while others won’t. Conversely, even if characters don’t complement each other, they can still cover for their weaknesses.

So when making a team you could either go for two characters that work really well together, or you could pick two characters with radically different playstyles that can cover bases the other can’t. It’s really up to you in how you tackle things, and while some teams work better than others, I wouldn’t call any combination outright bad. You just need to find one that fits your playstyle.

You could stick to one character and use the other as support, but the game encourages the opposite. Not only will you need to swap characters out to deal with different situations, but you’ll also want to do that to keep them alive.

The game has an interesting health system. Taking a hit will reduce your health gauge, but it might reduce it via red health which can be recovered. Attacking enemies will recover red health, but it also recovers slowly overtime. Meaning the safest recovery option is to simply tag the character out to let them recover.

Another resource you’ll want to keep an eye on is Focus. This is the blue bar underneath the health, and it’s used for your tag moves and special attacks. The former depleting it a little bit and the latter decreasing it by a lot. It recovers over time though it will also recover by attacking enemies. Even if the enemy is already defeated you can keep a juggle combo going to gain more Focus and health.

Like in Streets of Rage 4, the game encourages you to create big combos. It not only looks cool, but it’s also practical since it will allow you to regain resources and kill tougher enemies faster. There are a few enemies that will even attack as they recover, so the best option is to try to kill them in one long combo. A task easier said than done.

The combo system isn’t hard to learn the basics for. The controls are easy to figure out and there’s no complicated command inputs. The most complex it gets is pressing two buttons together. It’s very easy to string basic combo’s together, but trying to create anything more elaborate requires a bit more finesse.

Trying to find the best combo routes requires a lot of experimentation. Learning the enemy patterns, each characters move set, team synergies etc. In short, it’s an easy game to pick up and play but there’s a lot of depth if you want to truly master the combat.

The game is very satisfying when you learn it. It took a bit for me to get into it, but after a few runs it finally clicked with me and now I absolutely love it. Once you find the right team combination it all falls into place.

My favourite team so far is Nova and Beta Ray Bill. Nova is a great all-rounder, and his projectiles and flight combos work wonderfully with Bill’s hammer throw and lightning set-up. There are a few other characters I enjoy too like Wolverine, Iron Man and Venom but I’m still experimenting with team combinations for them. Although Venom and Iron Man did work well together, I still need to try them with other characters to see how they mesh.

Some characters do take a little while to learn, but that’s part of the fun. Trying out different team combinations and finding what’s best for you is a big part of the experience. There are some characters I hated at first but now I think are really fun because I spent time figuring them out.

I really don’t have much to complain about with the combat. It’s a satisfying system with a great combo system that the game incentivises you to take full advantage of. There’s strong enemy variety to keep the game from getting stale, and the bosses pose a decent challenge without being too frustrating.

The selection of bosses is fun too. Some are just playable characters that have been brainwashed which aren’t too interesting though they are some of the tougher fights in the game, Phyla and Phoenix are pretty decent skill checks, but the original bosses are a lot more fun. You’ve got characters like Beetle, MODOK, Master Mold, Taskmaster, Thanos, Hela, Knull, Sauron, and of course Annihilus as the final boss.

All of these guys are big heavy hitters in the comic, except Beetle but he’s also the first boss so it makes sense he’d be weaker, and each pose a fun challenge. It’s also nice that more obscure villains got a chance to shine, and it is cool seeing Knull here since he’s one of the best new villains in the comics. The Venom movies completely wasted him.

The level design is also really solid. The levels are each based on iconic Marvel locales. Asgard, the Helicarrier, the Savage Land, Klyntar, Genosha, a lot of places fans of the comics will recognise.

Not only is there a healthy visual variety in the levels but there’s plenty of different hazards that fit each level theme to keep things fresh. Since this is a beat-em-up the level design isn’t anything too elaborate, but the hazards in each level keep things from getting stale.

I also like that the game begins with a level in the New York streets and ends on the New York rooftops. It creates a nice book end to the adventure similar to what Shredder’s Revenge did. Unlike Shredder’s Revenge though, there are no vehicle levels.

I’m fine with that given the emphasis on the tag system, but I will admit a vehicle level would help add a little variety. Although the Asgard level opens with a fun segment that reminds me of the Neon Nightriders level in Turtles in Time. It’s one of the better visual set pieces in the game.

There are some levels that I’m not a fan of though. Some I found annoying as hell. The worst one being Heterpteron, man that level sucked. The enemies felt way tougher than usual and the main gimmick are these background bugs that fire projectiles at you that are hard to see coming when you’re dealing with everything else. I hated that level. It’s funny though because that level is the hardest to me, but the boss is the easiest. I guess they did this just to balance it out.

The game has enough variety in the enemies and levels that it doesn’t need a vehicle level. I never got bored while playing this game, although it does get repetitive in long play sessions. Which is just the nature of the genre. Still, even if I got bored of it one day I still kept coming back to it. The game itself isn’t very long. You can beat it in two to three hours, but there is plenty of replay value to keep you coming back.

Cosmic Invasion has two main modes. Campaign is the main story mode where you play every level and see the narrative play out. Arcade is more focused on getting you into the game. It cuts out the cutscenes and just lets you focus on the gameplay. You also don’t play every level in Arcade; there’s a branching path system that lets you pick different levels at certain points. So if you find one level you hate you can just skip past it.

Campaign is more for the casuals while Arcade is more for those who want to dive into the systems. Arcade is much more challenging since you stick with the team you pick throughout and you don’t heal between levels. So keeping your health up is vital if you want to get through it. Campaign isn’t a cake walk, but it is noticeably easier than Arcade.

Campaign does offer three challenges per stage that do add a little extra difficulty and replay value. Most aren’t too bad, but others can be infuriating. You’ll be hitting the restart button a lot if you want to beat them all.

A lot of the challenges require you to use specific characters. You can play as any character you want, but in Campaign the game highlights characters it wants you to focus on for that level. It’s a good way of getting you to try out different team combinations.

The challenges are entirely optional, but you will want to do them since you gain cubes to unlock stuff in the vault. You can also find cubes in the level and gain them by levelling up characters. Both of which can be done in Arcade too. So if you want to unlock things you have a few options in how to go about it.

As for what you can get there are character profiles, new colours, music and even some new features in Arcade. Speaking of which, Arcade has a few extra's that let you change up the experience.

This is where a lot of the replay value comes from. You can change the game in a lot of fun and interesting ways. You can turn off Focus regenerating automatically, you can have it so you lose health over time and regain it by attacking enemies, you can have it so special moves take health instead of Focus, you can make enemies faster or give yourself infinite continues.

There’s a lot of different ways to mix and match these to make the game easier or harder. Honestly the only issue I have with it is the difficulty levels. The only difference between Normal and Hard is that enemies do more damage. Which does provide a heftier challenge but it’s also not all that interesting. They don’t change up the levels or enemies they just make everything hurt more.

I just don’t find Hard that fun. Honestly, I’d rather the game not have a traditional difficulty select at all. The different parameters you can mess with let you customise the difficulty in a much deeper way and I’d rather they’d have focused more on that. I think that’s what most games should do now. This form of difficulty select is a lot more user friendly and customisable.

The difficulty is good for the most part. The difficulty curve is smooth with a few difficulty spikes here and there, but nothing is too difficult that you can’t overcome it with practice. It’s just right, and the different ways you can customise the game let you adjust the difficulty to match your skill level. I just wish that Hard mode did more than just boost damage taken.

The game is fun in single player, but like most beat-em-ups it’s even better when playing with others. Luckily, I was actually able to play multiplayer for the review this time.

The game has couch and online co-op for up to four players. The online is pretty decent. I was able to jump on and play a few levels with rando’s, and it’s pretty easy to get into a game. But I was also able to play a full co-op run with my nephew who played it on his Xbox while I was playing it on Switch 2. You gotta love a game with cross platform support like this.

The game is a lot of fun in multiplayer. I wasn’t able to get a full party but I did get three players in a session and it was utter madness in the best way. Suffice to say it’s far more chaotic than single player but that’s part of the fun. Don’t fight the chaos, just embrace it and have a good time.

The online ran ok from what I played, but I did notice a few glitches during my co-op playthrough. Some of the funnier examples were one enemy dying but coming back and we couldn’t get rid of them at all, and when we first reached the final boss he fell off-screen, died and we got stuck. It was hilarious but it did make us restart the level.

The online is mostly a smooth experience, and having cross platform support is a massive win in my book, but it isn’t the most stable right now. It could use a little extra polish and hopefully it will with future updates. Offline it runs perfectly though. The frame rate is consistent, and I didn’t notice any glitches. It’s a very polished game aside from the online. Which isn’t even that bad it just needs work.

I really like Marvel Cosmic Invasion. It’s a very enjoyable beat-em-up that not only pays homage to the classic Marvel games but in a lot of ways surpasses them. I would put this up there with The Punisher and X-men arcade games.

It isn’t perfect. Some levels are annoying, the optional challenges can be frustrating, the difficulties could be more interesting and the online could use more polish, but it’s an overall great beat-em-up that I can easily recommend.

Most of my complaints are either nit-picks or just things you expect. Like no shit some levels are better than others, every game is like that. My only major complaints are the level up system and that I think the game could have had a better tutorial. The one it has is fine enough and covers most of the mechanics, but it doesn’t cover all of them. There are a few techniques I didn’t know about on my first playthrough that really would have helped out.

In the games defence though, I would have learned about them if I had bothered to read the move-list. So you can read this as me being an idiot, but I still think the tutorial should tell me about every mechanic. I get the game wants to leave things open for the player to discover but that should be in application of mechanics not in actually finding them.

As for the level up system, it’s not bad I just find it unnecessary. Playing as each character will level them up and give them benefits like more health, Focus, a passive trait or new colours. The colours I can understand but a lot of the other stuff should be there by default.

I think this kind of level-up system should only be in beat-em-ups that mix in RPG stat building. Like Castle Crashers or Absolum. In a game like this where it’s more a straight arcade style brawler I don’t think it’s needed. You could have cut this.

Still if those are the only major complaints then that should tell you how good the game is. Marvel Cosmic Invasion is one of the best modern beat-em-ups. I would put it above Shredder’s Revenge which I already liked, although my opinion on it isn’t as glowing as my review made it out to be now. Don’t read that one I need to re-do it.

I don’t know if I like it better than Streets of Rage 4, that game is the peak of the genre as far as I’m concerned, but I will say I liked it more than Absolum. Even if I think that games combat is a bit better, it’s structure really didn’t work for it. Cosmic Invasion keeps things straightforward and simple and is a much better experience for it.

If you’re a fan of classic beat-em-ups this is an easy recommendation. I do think it’s a little pricy for what it has, so if you’re on the fence then it's best you wait for a price drop, but if you like what you’ve heard then pick it up. You won’t regret it.

Given past DotEmu releases we’ll probably see some DLC for this game. Probably more characters or a potential roguelike mode, but what I’m more interested in is what other retro revivals Tribute could do. They already have done TMNT and Marvel, so what other properties could they tackle? Maybe they could do a DC game in a similar vein. Lord knows it would be nice to have DC get a W while Warner Bros is burning to the ground.